THE MARK OF CAIN

by Ray C. Stedman

In our first study together of the story of Cain and Abel we examined
the causes for human hatred and warfare. We saw what the New Testament
confirms-that wars and murders spring from seeds of unreasoning jealousy
and envy which are allowed to lie unjudged in human hearts. When they are
small they are left unjudged and not faced. Men kill because they hate;
they hate because they will not accept God's ordering of life. They want
their own way, they want God to act as they want him to act (or perhaps
I should say, as we want him to act).

Today we examine a very closely related problem, that of race relations,
of human brotherhood. In this story of Cain and Abel it is highlighted
for us by what followed the cold-blooded murder of Abel.

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your
brother?" He said, "I do not know; Am I my brother's keeper?"
{Gen 4:9 RSV}

Cain's insolent and arrogant response to God's question is a sign of
his inward, unacknowledged guilt. This is always the way of guilt-to disclaim
responsibility. Cain replies, "My brother? What have I to do with
my brother? Am I my brother's keeper? Is it my responsibility to know where
my brother is?" The hypocrisy of that is most evident. Though Cain
could disclaim responsibility for knowing where his brother was, he did
not hesitate to assume the far greater responsibility of taking his brother's
life.

We hear much of the same thing today. When Martin Luther King was murdered,
many were saying these same things. "Well, it's not our fault that
Dr. King was killed. Why should we suffer for what some fanatic did? It's
not our responsibility." Soon some were saying, "He ought to
have known this would happen. After all, if you stir up trouble, sooner
or later you will pay the price for it." No one can deny the logic
and truth of a statement like that. Yet it is very obviously incomplete.
There is nothing in it of facing responsibility, and no honest answering
of the terrible question from Cain's lips, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Two or three decades ago, Dr. Carl Henry wrote a book called The
Uneasy Conscience of Fundamentalism, which bothered many people when
it first came out. In it Dr. Henry pointed out that the isolationism which
many Christian adopt, the isolationism which removes us from contact with
non-Christians, has also successfully removed us from grappling with some
of the pressing social questions of our hour. We have oftentimes been quite
content to sing about going to heaven, but have shown very little concern
for the sick and the poor, the lonely, the old, and the miserable of our
world. Isaiah 58 is a ringing condemnation of such an attitude on the part
of religious people. Other passages from the Scriptures make clear that
God is infinitely concerned in this area of life, and those who bear his
name dare not neglect these areas. Let us be perfectly frank and honest
and admit that this is a manifestation of Christian love which we evangelicals
have tended greatly to neglect. The evangelical church, therefore, has
largely become almost exclusively white, middle-class, Protestant, and
Republican.

Now I don't have anything against any of these designations, except
that their preponderance indicates that something is wrong with the church.
The church was never intended to minister only to one segment of society,
but is to include all people, all classes, all colors, without distinction.
Both the Old and New Testament alike are crystal clear in this respect.
These distinctions are to be ignored in the church; they must be, otherwise
we are not being faithful to the One who called us and who himself was
the Friend of sinners of all kinds. We must be perfectly honest and admit
that this has been the weak spot of evangelical life, this failure to move
out in obedience to God's command to offer love, friendship, forgiveness,
and grace to all people without regard to class, color, background, or
heredity. We believe that the gospel is salt, to preserve society from
corruption, and that in calling out "the mystery of godliness,"
God is forming a secret society which constitutes the church to be a counteraction
to "the mystery of lawlessness" which is also at work. These
are opposed, one to the other, and when lawlessness surges to the front
as it has today, and seems to flow unchecked through the cities of our
nation, it is because the mystery of godliness has been thwarted and held
back, contained, and not turned loose in the midst of society.

If we still are reluctant to face some of the things this passage brings
before us, perhaps we need to look on to Cain's punishment, given in Verses
10 through 12:

And the Lord said, "What have you done? The voice
of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are
cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's
blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield
to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth."
{Gen 4:10-12 RSV}

God uses a very vivid figure here to describe his knowledge of Cain's
deed. Cain thought he was acting in secret, but of course everything is
open before God. God said, "The blood of your brother is crying to
me, shrieking to me, from the ground." Abel's blood shouts at God.
It makes demands upon his justice and his love. Hebrews speaks of "the
blood of Jesus, which," says the writer, "speaks of better things
them the blood of Abel," {cf, Heb 12:24}. We know what he means. The
blood of Jesus is crying out before God for forgiveness. "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do," said Jesus from the
cross {Luke 23:34 KJV}. The blood of Jesus is crying constantly for mercy,
for grace to all who take refuge under it, and thus it does speak of "better
things" than the blood of Abel.

But the blood of Abel speaks too. That is what God is saying to Cain.
"Your brother's blood is crying something to me that I can't ignore.
It is shrieking to me from the ground. It is crying out!" For what?
For redress, for vengeance, for justice, for the righting of wrong. It
cries to a God of justice and says, "Do not let this deed go unavenged.
Do something about this." Now notice carefully that it is crying out
for vengeance from God, not man. "Vengeance belongs to me," says
the Lord {cf, Heb 10:30, Deut 32:35}. It never belongs to man. It is not
man's task to avenge these things. In fact, when man assumes that role
he only makes it worse. He unleashes a vicious cycle which escalates rapidly
into all-out anarchy, and sometimes civil war and revolution. But nevertheless,
God is driven to act. This is what this ancient story of Cain and Abel
tells us. God cannot allow these things to occur and nothing happen as
a result. His sense of justice is appealed to in the murderous act.

What then does he do? He sentences Cain! He assigns a punishment to
him, and the nature of it is very significant. Notice, there are no thunderbolts
of wrath here. God does not seize hold of Cain and take his life in vengeance.
What happens is what writers sometimes call "poetic justice,"
i.e., a strangely fitting result. Cain was a man of the soil, a tiller
of the ground; in this work he took pride and found joy. A man's work is
always his pride. Cain was a farmer, who delighted in producing beautiful
crops of fruit and grain. But now he has poured the blood of his brother
upon the ground. So God says, the ground, the arena of your pride, will
now be cursed toward you. It will no longer yield you its strength. You
will find, in your attempts to work the ground, nothing but frustration,
sweat, tears and toil.

Cain, in other words, has lost his "green thumb." The ground
will no longer release its fruitfulness to him; his working of the ground
will result in fruitless labor. He would therefore, be forced to wander
from place to place as the crops failed wherever he went. He would find
himself unable to extract a living and this would turn him into a wanderer
on the face of the earth. I wonder if we are not still hearing echoes of
this strange sentence upon Cain today. What is the pride of America? It
is not in our great American cities-these great showplaces of wealth and
power, these planned communities, which we intended to be models of knowledge,
wisdom, and happiness, where all the problems of life would be happily
solved?

Well, what has happened? Because we would not answer God's question,
"Where is your brother?" and we replied, as Cain, in arrogance
and defiance, "Am I my brother's keeper?", today our great cities
are dying. The pride and joy of America is severely threatened, and we
have not seen the worst of it yet. But to me, the ultimate fate is not
the physical violence which threatens our nation, but the fact that America
has lost its way home. American families no longer know how to have a home.
We have become wanderers, lonely, empty, restless; a nation on wheels,
driven and homeless, vainly seeking to find something to satisfy, fugitives
from a pitiless fate.

But the account closes on a hopeful note,

Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is greater
than I can hear. Behold, thou has driven me this day away from the ground;
and from thy face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer
on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me." Then the Lord said
to him, "Not so! If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall he taken on
him sevenfold." And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who came
upon him should kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the
Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod [which means "the land
of wandering"], east of Eden." {Gen 4:14-16
RSV}

It is obvious from this account that Cain fears the vengeance of his
other brothers. You say, "What other brothers?" In the very next
chapter, in verse 4, we are told plainly that Adam and Eve "had other
sons and daughters" beside the ones that are named in the Scripture.
This is the explanation for the question many have asked out of a kind
of naive ignorance, "Where did Cain get his wife?" The answer
is, he married one of his sisters. This was yet a common occurrence as
late as the days of Abraham, who also married one of his sisters, his half-sister.
But Cain knows that his life is in danger wherever he goes. Wherever he
is he will run into his relatives (can you imagine anything worse?) who
will be motivated either by fear or vengeance to take his life.

Cain now is obsessed with his guilt, haunted by it. He knows he can
go nowhere in human society without constantly wondering if the attitudes
manifest toward him are subtle, sinister ones, or whether they are friendly
and can be trusted. He is a man obsessed and haunted with guilt, and so
he says to God, feeling the weight of this, "My punishment is greater
than I can bear. I will live in constant danger of reprisal." But
God said, "No, you won't." And God put a mark upon him (which
has now become a proverb) by which, as he says, "Anyone who sees this
mark will know that God himself protects Cain, and whoever takes this life
will be avenged sevenfold."

I do not know what the mark of Cain was. It is impossible to tell whether
it was some physical mark, some sign in his body, which indicated that
he was God's property, or something else. I do not know. I think perhaps
it was a hopeless, pathetic look, something that would stir pity in any
individual's heart, so that Cain became (as man is, basically, everywhere
in his guilt), an object of universal pity to those who saw him. But the
point is, even the guilty man is still God's property! God throws a circle
of protective love about Cain and says, "Yes, he is guilty. He's a
murderer -- but he is still my property, and don't forget it in your dealings
with him."

Thus the mark of Cain is not a mark of shame, as we usually interpret
it. It is not a mark to brand him in the eyes of others as a terrible murderer,
to be shunned and treated as a pariah. It is rather, a mark of grace, by
which God is saying, "This man is still my property. Hands off!"
Thus the heart of God is always ready to show mercy. There can only be
one reason why God thus protected Cain. It was in order to give him time
to think and to repent. This is always the way of God. Peter says, in his
second letter, "Do not ever make the mistake of regarding the longsuffering
of God as weakness," {cf, 2 Pet 3:9}. You who say, "Twenty
centuries of Christian life have gone by and nothing has happened; God
will never do anything to right wrongs" -- don't make the mistake
of thinking that indicates God's impotence. "But," Peter says,
"it is rather his mercy, it is his grace, giving men time to repent
in order that none may perish but that all may come to repentance,"
{cf, 2 Pet 3:9}. But don't presume upon his patience -- utilize the
time to repent and change. Thus God gives even Cain a moment of grace,
space to repent.

Prayer:

Forgive us, our Father, for the many weeks and years in which we have
failed to judge ourselves in this particular area. How many times we have
glossed over our prejudices and treated them as unimportant trivialities,
never realizing that our silence shouts, and our refusal to act speaks
volumes. Lord, we pray that in this late hour of our history we may he
faithful to you in every direction and manifest more fully than we ever
have done before the saving love that is without prejudice or respect of
persons. Thank you for this sharp word from the Scriptures to our own hearts
helping us to understand what is happening in our nation today. May we
face it in realism and in truth. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.

Copyright (C) 1995 Discovery
Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula
Bible Church. This data file is the sole property of Discovery Publishing,
a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church. It may be copied only in its entirety
for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must
contain the above copyright notice. This data file may not beccopied in
part, edited, revised, copied for resale or incorporated in any commercial
publications, recordings, broadcasts, performances, displays or other products
offered for sale, without the written permission of Discovery Publishing.
Requests for permission should be made in writing and addressed to Discovery
Publishing, 3505 Middlefield Rd. Palo Alto, CA. 94306-3695.